25/11/2025
I missed an appointment this morning due to mundane school drama and rural town 'traffic chaos'. Finding myself with a spare hour, I went to see my mum and sister. And, how I wish that looked different to what it is in reality....
Somehow in so many ways, the loss just gets bigger and bigger.
On the way there, I bravely drove past my mum's house, remembering how many mornings I'd pull up outside her front door, and unload a car of excited, sticky, chaotic children who would run into her arms and sink into her softness with happy sighs. And she would make me a coffee and sit me in 'my' chair at her kitchen table, and I'd download the latest minutiae from my life, give her a quick hug, finish my coffee, and head home, the children barely waving me goodbye as they climbed aboard her seemingly ever-ready lap for cuddles, stories, safety.
And as I stood at the grave, looking at the years that have passed since my sister died - I was struck by how much loss is held on this stone. Half my family, gone in a year. Both times shocking, unexpected, horribly fast.
There was peace there too. The sunlight on the stone, the beautiful words honouring those who rested below. It felt good to be there. But then, eventually, you must turn and walk away, leaving it behind. Stepping somehow from one world into another. Everytime another sense of loss, another little death.
No way to wrap this caption up with neat words or profound reflections on life and death. I miss them. Endlessly. Always. I carry that loss around with me. Huge and heavy still. Perhaps more hidden, less obvious than it used to be, but no less enormous, no less felt. No less felt.
